The Unicorn Charm
by CN
Summary: Of course unicorns are real! If she says they are, then they are...Slight HamtaroxBijou


**I do not own Hamtaro.**

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It was an early morning—too early in the fifteen-year-old Hamtaro's mind—as well as an extremely chilly morning. So chilly, in fact, that without the beckoning of his mother to do so, Hamtaro had put on two sweaters, a jacket, an extremely warm hat (which seemed useless to Hamtaro in retrospect since there were holes that let his large Ham-Human ears out, anyway) and a large orange scarf that tied around his neck nearly five times before it got too short. All of this over his regular long-sleeved shirt and jeans.

Why would he get up so early and especially on such a bitterly cold morning?

Well, the answer to this question was walking towards him with a pair of ice skates in her arms. Even from faraway he could see the red on her cheeks from the sharp winter air, but that didn't stop the small smile from beaming on her face. Like Hamtaro, she had covered herself in sweaters and jackets, all of which being a shade of blue, which was her favorite color. She had a dark blue hat pulled over her already frosty white hair, a long, powder blue scarf that reached down to her waist and wooly blue gloves that were much too big for her stretching over her hands. But all of this seemed silly to Hamtaro since the only cover over her legs was a navy blue skirt that came mid-way to her knees.

"Oh, it's cold!" she said when she finally got to him, putting her ice skates on the frost-covered grass and rubbing her gloved hands furiously together.

"It'd help if you actually wore something on the bottom half of your body, Bijou," Hamtaro scolded, a smile playing on the sides of his lips.

"Well, ice-skating in pants is just silly. Do you ever see any of the professional women in pants?" She teased, straightening her posture to make it look like she wasn't all that bothered by the cold. "And besides, it isn't _that_ cold. You Japanese people are way too used to summer breezes. The French would just call this weather a small breeze."

Hamtaro rolled his eyes and approached the park bench he had put his ice skates on. Bijou followed suit and placed her skates next to his. Hamtaro rubbed his eyes which were getting dry from the wind.

"It's too early and too cold," he said with a sigh as he sat on the bench and started to take off his shoes. "Remind me why we decided to do this again?" He asked as he started to put on his skates.

"No reason, really," Bijou started, already lacing up her snowy white ice skates, "it's just a break from the stress of midterms and all that lovely school stuff. We hardly see each other anymore due to the fact we're always studying so hard." She stood up and twirled around in her skates, making it all look so easy.

Hamtaro stood up beside her, taking her hand and leading her to the ice skating rink. They paid their admission for the rink and entered (a little wobbly at first due to the change in the ground's friction).

"That's a good a reason as any," Hamtaro agreed at length, still holding Bijou's hand and skating with her.

"I suppose…" Bijou trailed off and skated in front of Hamtaro, gliding effortlessly. She skated back to Hamtaro and put a hand on his shoulder. "But I also think it's kind of romantic," she told him, coming close to his ear and then skating away. Hamtaro's face turned a vivid shade of crimson and he knew he wasn't because of the chilly weather.

They were the only ones on the rink so early, or so they thought. As the two of them skated past a curve of the oblong rink, they heard a small wail.

"Can you help me?" A shy little voice cried out. Hamtaro and Bijou stopped skating, wondering if they had heard correctly. They looked around the rink, searching for the source of the cry. Sure enough, there were two little kids, no older than four or five, pressed against the wall of the rink. The girl, with her white hat and matching white jacket, practically blended into the ice. The little boy wore a dark black jacket, and Hamtaro and Bijou wondered how they could have missed the kids.

The teen Ham-Humans skated to the children. Bijou kneeled down in front of the girl, who seemed to be the one who had pleaded for help since the voice had sounded feminine. Despite the fact that her bare legs were getting frostbite from every second of kneeling like that, Bijou asked: "What do you need help with?"

"She's stupid," the little boy answered, pointing to the little girl's ice skates, which weren't tied properly and thus kept slipping off the girl's feet. "She can't skate cuz she can't tie her shoes."

"Don't say that," Hamtaro said. "Didn't your mommy teach you not to say that stuff about your sister?" Hamtaro asked, assuming that the two children were siblings.

"She's not my sister," the little boy snapped, sounding offended from such a comment. "She's my stupid cousin."

"She's not stupid," Bijou said to the boy. She turned her attention back to the little girl and assured, "I didn't learn to tie my skates until I was nearly twelve. I was a pretty slow learner."

The little girl's mouth opened into a perfect O. "Wow! And you can skate really good!"

"Believe me…It was all practice. I was as clumsy as a horse with soap for shoes, even with my skates tied perfectly."

"I can vouch for that," Hamtaro said, kneeling before the children, as he remembered all the times throughout middle school Bijou would limp into class due to her latest attempt at skating.

"Where's your mommy?" Bijou asked the girl as she started tying her skates.

"She forgot her keys in the car so she told us to stay here," the little girl explained. "And I'm not stupid, even the big kids said so!" she told her cousin.

"Yeah you are," the little boy said as he watched Bijou tie the little girl's skates for her.

"Stop saying that," Hamtaro said.

"And why do you still think she's so stupid, anyway?" Bijou asked as she finished up tying the skates, causing the little girl to beam with excitement.

"Because she believes in unicorns!" the little boy explained. "And she won't believe they're not real!"

"Because they are," the little girl responded. "I know they are. My daddy said so."

At the word unicorn, Bijou had suddenly become quiet. This all seemed so familiar…

"_Father, they're real, aren't they?"_

"_Of course they are, ma cheri."_

"_You're not lying, are you?"_

"_I wouldn't, you know that."_

"_Then where do they live?"_

"_In your imagination, of course."_

"_Where's that?"_

"I believe in unicorns," Bijou said absentmindedly, staring out at nothing.

"Then it's only stupid girls," the little boy huffed. "You don't believe in unicorns, right?" he asked Hamtaro.

"Of course I do," Hamtaro said, draping an arm over Bijou's shoulders. "If she says they are, then they are."

"Then where do they live?" the little boy snapped.

"In your imagination, of course," Bijou responded, snapping out of her memories and looking at the two little children.

"Where's that?" the little girl asked innocently.

"It doesn't exist," the little boy said sinisterly.

"Yes it does, and my daddy said that they were real, too," Bijou said quietly. "Your imagination isn't on a map, but when you look hard enough you'll find it and you'll see how big and beautiful it really is."

"If it's not on the map then it doesn't exist," the boy explained. "You're just as stupid as her."

"Your brain's not on the map, so does that mean it doesn't exist?" Hamtaro mumbled so that only Bijou could hear. Bijou gave Hamtaro a look that screamed, _He's just a little kid…let me deal with him._

Bijou shook her head. She pulled off her glove and pulled off the bracelet she was wearing. She carefully took off one of the two charms that was hanging on the bracelet and gave it to the girl.

"What is it?" The little boy asked, leaning over the girl's shoulder to see the object.

"A unicorn charm," The little girl responded, carefully observing the tiny silver charm with emerald eyes and a shine so reflective that it could've been a mirror.

"My daddy gave me two when I was your age," Bijou explained, showing the girl the other charm that was still on her bracelet. "I think he would have wanted a fellow believer like you to have had it."

"I can have it?" the little girl asked as her eyes lit up.

Bijou nodded. "As long as you promise me that nothing will happen to it." The little girl nodded in excitement and promised several times that nothing would ever touch the charm.

"Good," Bijou said as she slid the bracelet back onto her hand and put on her glove. "Maybe one day you'll give the charm to a little girl who believes." Bijou patted the girl's head. "And stop calling your cousin stupid," she told the boy who just made a face at her in return.

Hamtaro and Bijou stood up just in time to see a woman skate over to the children with car keys in her hands. As the two of them heard the little girl cry, "Mommy, look!", they skated away.

"That was really nice of you," Hamtaro told her with his arm still around her shoulders. "I know how much that charm means to you especially since your father gave it to you."

"Thanks," Bijou said softly as she put her head on Hamtaro's shoulder and skated slowly with him. Hamtaro was so aware of how close they were that he tried not to breathe too hard as to keep the moment perfectly still.

"My legs are freezing…" She sighed. "I guess I shouldn't have kneeled on the ice with nothing over my legs except my skates."

"Then come on, we'll go get some cocoa and then come back," Hamtaro suggested.

Bijou closed her eyes and envisioned her drinking steaming hot cocoa with Hamtaro. "That sounds lovely."

The two of them left the rink and when they returned, there were several people occupying the rink. That didn't matter, though, for the teens skated for hours until they practically collapsed onto the ice.

Meanwhile, a helicopter hovered thousands of feet above the rink.

"As you can see, despite the temperature, many are using the weather to their advantage as they go ice-skating on this brisk winter morning," the weatherman reported as he looked below on the ice. He stared at the rink for a few seconds, observing the people that looked like tiny ants. He then noticed something that he hadn't seen before…

"Hey," he told the cameraman on the helicopter. "Look at the rink; do you see that?"

The cameraman pointed his camera out the window and stared below at the rink…

Sure enough, there was a large marking on the ice rink that was clear as day, even with the people skating all over it.

"Hmm…well it seems strange, but that sure looks like a unicorn etched onto the ice…"

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Something short and sweet for the upcoming holiday season.

-CN


End file.
